Andrea Dovizioso backs decision to use old Ducati fairing

Andrea Dovizioso says his strong performance in MotoGP’s San Marino Grand Prix qualifying is “confirmation” that he made the right decision to stick with the old Ducati fairing.

Team-mate Jorge Lorenzo has been using Ducati’s new-spec aerodynamic fairing since Friday practice at the Czech Grand Prix at Brno – and had previously said he believed it was worth half a second per lap.

Dovizioso himself opted to run the new fairing in the Red Bull Ring race, which he won, but reverted to the standard version for Silverstone – and, after triumphing in Britain as well, he has continued with the older spec in Misano.

At a venue that hasn’t favoured Ducati in the past, the Italian qualified second, just 0.162s off pole – and he believes this has vindicated his decision to use the standard fairing.

“This track, I think the new fairing works well and I think we can be faster on both, but it is just about good and negative things,” Dovizioso said.

“I think I am quite good now to use the best potential of the standard fairing and we decided to work on that.

“I was following some other Ducatis with the new fairing, and in some places they are faster, but I am faster in other places. So I think we can take the right decision, and this is the confirm.”

Dovizioso, who leads the MotoGP title race by nine points from Marc Marquez, said that he was not committed to seeing out the season with the old fairing.

“This we will decide race-by-race, day-by-day. For sure this is one of the tracks [where] normally there is a lot of wheelie and the braking lines are really important and there are also fast corners.

“But in the [August] test we did a comparison and, like I said before, there are positives and negative things on both fairings.”

Lorenzo, who qualified fifth using the new fairing, ruled out switching back to the standard version for Sunday’s race – but said he could end up using it in the next race weekend at Motorland Aragon.

“For sure not for tomorrow, because Misano has not a lot of straights,” he said. “And Dovi doesn’t feel so much the benefit of the new fairing with his riding style as me.

“I am the rider who felt most benefit from it, [Pramac Ducati rider Danilo] Petrucci feels more benefits than negative points – for Dovi, he prefers to stay with the standard one.

“In Aragon we have this [1km] straight, it will probably not be a bad idea to try the standard fairing.”